SNL Financial recently reported “91 Institutions Defer May’s TARP Dividend”.  The implication is that banks can’t make TARP payments, but this doesn’t seem to be the case for every bank on the list.  Some banks aren’t being allowed to pay dividends by regulators even though it’s not likely to put the banks in jeopardy.  For some banks, not paying dividends might make sense, especially if the preferreds are non-cumulative or if they’ve borrowed money (or have other preferred shares) yielding more than 5%...